Dynasty Tactics

September 28, 2002

Platform: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: KOEI
Publisher: KOEI
Reviewed by: Alkaiser

Gameplay: [10] Graphics: [8] Audio: [8] Replay: [10] Overall: [9.7]

Think about the absolute pinnacle of your gaming life. The euphoric feeling you had in the pit of your stomach. Usually the first time you get the feeling is what hooks you into to gaming. Then it takes a while for you to get it again...then slowly but surely the developers making clones of each others' games, and nobody innovating leaves that feeling a distant memory.

The last time I felt this feeling was playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I got little rushes of adrenaline playing games like Dynasty Warriors 3 and MechWarrior 4. I suppose I felt the same way about Multiplayer Battletech 3025, but that game never made it to market, and so that doesn't really count.

In any case, it had been too long.

And KOEI came along to make sure I had some real gaming back in my life. Put succinctly, Dynasty Tactics is very, very close to what my ideal game of this type would be like. It's like they extracted the ideas from my head, and they coalesced into a tangible game. I feel like I'm playing a dream.

I don't know if you'll feel the same way about it...but if you liked Kessen and Kessen II but wanted them to be a little more in-depth, you're going to love this game.

First off, for maximum enjoyment of this game, I cannot recommend the book "Three Kingdoms", credited to Luo Guanzhong and translated by Moss Roberts, highly enough. This book, and the history it is based off of provides the background from nearly all KOEI games. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dynasty Warriors, and Kessen II all draw inspiration from this book.

This period of Chinese history is basically the World War II for China. You know how in the US whenever someone wants to make some movie about a war, and give it a happy ending, they always choose WWII...it's a highly romanticized era with heroes and all the good stuff people like.

I prefer the heroes that emerge as part of this era because, well, back then, war was a lot more up close and personal. You went our and fought, but you had a fighting chance at everything. If someone shot an arrow at you, it was still possible for you to dodge, or get a shield up in time. Now someone fires off a gun and you'll die before you hear it go off. Or they get missile lock on something and fire it off from a range greater than your morning commute. Kinda hard to do anything heroic nowadays.

So, once you've acquainted yourself with all the players and particulars, you're ready to dive into the saga. You'll have a mandatory 3 mission training session that will acquaint you with basic movement, the usage of Tactics, Combo Attacks, and the usage of Tactical Links. Unlike Kessen and Kesen II which required you to beat the game first before unlocking alternate paths, Dynasty Tactics lets you jump into the game as Liu Bei, Cao Cao, or Sun Ce. Your goal for each of the three is essentially the same, reunify China.

Tactics

This is where the game diverges from Kessen. While in Kessen II you could take control of your units a little bit and run them around on the field, and then Raid, or Fireball and all that, there's no individual unit control in Dynasty Tactics. Everything is you moving you squad around on the field, and setting things up on that level.

All your special actions are now called Tactics. They range from things that boost your army's morale, like Revive and Boost, to devastating attacks like Raid and Fire Arrow, to deceptive things like Mislead and the like. Tactics are the crux of the game. You will not win by just going up and attacking enemy units, no matter how much you've reduced their morale and even if you're hitting then from behind from an elevated position. Wars back then weren't won by killing off all the troops, they were won by you getting enough men to run away.

Each Tactic can basically only be counted on to be performed once a battle. If you defeat an enemy general, you'll get a Tactic back at random. In addition if you have a unit of "Builders" they'll be able to heal a unit and possibly restore a random Tactic as well. A third way to use a Tactic more than once is to trigger a General's "Special Ability". Certain Special Abilities will allow you to have unlimited use of certain Tactics while that Ability is active.

Your General will also only be able to hold a certain number of Tactics. These are gained by learning them from other friendly generals, stealing them off of enemies you attack from behind, gain while defeating other generals with Tactics, finding them randomly on the map (World and Battle), or by leveling up. You want to make sure you have the useful Tactics you need. Read up on the their descriptions. Stuff like "Taunt", "Pit", and "Fire Arrow" may not seem all that useful at first...they kill a very small number of units, but use them correctly, and you'll be able to dispatch a division very, very quickly into a battle.

Tactical Combos and Links

Some of your units are really weak. They're led by the weakest member of your army, and they do piddling amounts of damage. But they can end up being the most useful cog in the well-oiled machine that generates your victories. They can best be used in Tactical Combos.

If a Tactic is played on an enemy that is within the effective sphere of influence and facing as another of your units, their current Tactic (changed by hitting O while it is that unit's turn.) will be automatically played in a Combo Attack. These attacks not only have the effect of hitting a unit with two Tactics at once, but each Tactic played in succession will increase the effectiveness of others. This will mean the difference between defeating say 2000 mean, and my record so far, which is 16,799, with 3 divisions destroyed. Some of your Tactics move enemies. This is very important to note, because you can move them out of the effect range of a combo, or set it up to move them into the range of another group of armies, setting them up the finish. My record so far is a 5 Tactic Combo.

Tactical Links are much the same, only they may only be played by 1 of your maximum of 2 Strategists on the field, and they can affect other units not affected by the initial Tactic. Here's how they work. Say your Strategist goes at Turn 5. You have a series of guys that move at 8-12. You can Charge the Unit in front of you, but you tell your Strategist to Link the Tactic instead. Your guys go at 8, and set off a chain. At the end of their Chain, your Linked Tactic takes effect. Linked Tactics gain the same increased lethality as the Combo'ed attacks, so setting them up right can mean a really, really devastating attack.

You want to watch to make sure you don't waste Tactics though, if the unit is destroyed, the Combos will still keep triggering, so you can waste a 5 Combo when a single Tactic would have sufficed.

World Map and Army Maintenance

Your armies don't fully heal after every battle. Heading back to the capital will replenish your troops. But, when you're on the outskirts of your territory making inroads onto the Objective, you don't want to waste turns running back to the capital to heal, because your enemy will be doing the same. You can replenish troops in one of two ways. In battle, you can heal the unit with Builders. But this process is slow, and generally, you don't want to have 2 units unable to act in a skirmish.

Alternately, you can reform your Army. Each Army has a maximum of 4 Generals. Armies can only be led by an Officer that has a flag standard icon next to their name. Each of the other 3 positions can be filled by any other Generals, but the Level of the General determines the number of Generals they can have under them. So, if you have one General that got obliterated in the last battle you can sub in a new one, either from another Army, or from back at your capital. You can also do this to replace a unit that wasn't killed but is hurting pretty bad. They'll sit in the Capital and heal for a while, waiting for you to call upon them again.

Your Generals lead an army based upon their forte. Guan Yu can lead Horse units, and Sha Moke will lead Bowmen by default. (Sha Moke is the coolest. He's just got a cool name. Sha-MOKE! He rocks.) Once their Armies gain enough experience points, you can upgrade them to better units. The units have different abilities and Attack and Defense ratings, and in addition will change the progression for the stats their leaders gain bonuses to once the General levels up.

While you conquer vacant cities, or kill off important Generals, you'll gain items. You can attach one item to each General. most of the items will change the General's Special Ability, but some of them will increase their stats, too. They aren't that crucial, but you can use them to tweak the way your Army is set up to maximize them. Once you get to around 210 AD, you can almost always Revive your troops right off the bat to get their Special Ability active. So you want to set your Generals up to take maximum advantage of that knowledge.

You can move your Army 4 spaces on the map in Friendly territory and 1 space in Enemy. Basically, this means that you can move up to 4 spaces until you hit an enemy city. Cities that have a little opaque white flag in them mean there is a Civilian there that has an Army with him. Find out who this Civilian's friends are, and if you station one of them there and end a turn, that Civilian will sign up and join your ranks. Some people will set off a chain reaction, bringing 4 or 5 units into the fold in a single turn. This leaves you with a bit of a quandary...sign them up or not? Basically, choose between having a large medium strength army that can't advance so much, or a tight group of units that is each formidable on its own. All depends of your playing style.

Graphics and Audio

Really nice. There are some problems with clipping every once in a while, but everything looks really good. A few too many Generals look the same, and you run into a bit of a problem having to watch the same Tactic cutscenes over and over, but it's no big deal.

The voiceovers though, are horrid. They need some better localization at KOEI, and some less American sounding voice actors. Ideally, they'd leave the Chinese/Japanese voices in the game, and just give them English subtitles that are done correctly. The rest of the sound is done pretty good with the battle sound effects and background music.

Overall

I picked this game up for $49.99. I thought that was a little much, but when I started playing the game I wanted to call everyone I knew and tell them how much this game rocked. I wanted to grab people by the ear, sit them down and have them watch me fight a battle and yell out, "You see that! THAT'S why I play games, baby!" I can't describe the feeling I get playing this. It's just that good. If you don't like strategy games, this isn't going to be your thing...but if you liked Kessen II, this is going to be so much fun for you. Thank you KOEI, I tip my hat to you. So close to being absolute perfection, it's unreal.